This invention relates to a query engine for social analytics to determine groups of users (audiences) from a given set of users based on user attributes and/or user connections for identifying characteristics of audiences.
Businesses often make or sell products targeted towards a subset of population (also referred to as the target audience of the business). Typically the target audience is a subset of population that satisfies certain demographic characteristics and/or includes audience forming an interest cluster or audience that likes certain pages hosted by an online system, for example, a social networking system. For example, a business may sell clothes targeted towards women of a particular age group. Another business may target men of certain age group living in a particular location that like certain page.
Businesses attempt to direct their sales and marketing efforts towards their target audience. For example, a business may create certain ambiance in a store that is expected to appeal to their target audience. Alternatively, the business may create a particular look and feel for a website that is expected to appeal to their target audience. However, businesses need to understand their target audience, for example, the likes/dislikes and characteristics of their target audience to be able to direct their marketing and sales efforts towards the right target audience.
Businesses often lack detailed insights into the characteristics of their target audience. For example, even if a business knows the age group and gender of the target audience, the business may not have accurate information describing the interests and likes/dislikes of their target audience.
Analyzing a target audience requires identification of a subset of a population. Identifying subsets of a population can be a resource intensive process if the size of the population is large, for example, hundreds of millions of users. Conventional techniques use sampling of users to perform analysis. However, the accuracy of these techniques depends on the size of the samples and the sampling strategy. As a result, businesses often lack proper insight into their target audience and fail to direct their resources towards the right set of people. Businesses may also lose significant revenue by targeting the wrong audience.